IHTP, 2(1), 35-50, 2022 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 ISSN 2563-9269

(Im)mobilities and life satisfaction in times of
COVID-19: The case of older persons in Switzerland

Iuna Dones1,2,3, Ruxandra Oana Ciobanu1,3, Marie Baeriswyl 3,4

1Faculty of Social Work, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, (HETSL | HES-SO), Lausanne,
Switzerland; 2Institute of Sociological Research (ISR), University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland; 3 Swiss Centre of
Expertise in Life Course Research, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland;4 Centre for the Interdisciplinary
Study of Gerontology and Vulnerability, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

Corresponding author: I. Dones (iuna.dones@hetsl.ch)

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic led to changes in mobilities worldwide. Physical movement and social contact are shown
to be correlated to life satisfaction. In this paper we are interested in how during the pandemic other types of
mobilities relate to life satisfaction. The paper draws on a survey (N=643) among persons aged 65+ in Switzerland.
Results show that engagement in communicative mobilities are related to higher life satisfaction, imaginative
mobilities only partially relate to life satisfaction, and virtual mobilities have no correlation.

KEYWORDS
COVID-19, communicative mobilities, imaginative mobilities, virtual mobilities

FUNDING SOURCE
This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation Professorship Grant ‘Transnational Ageing
among Older Migrants and Natives: A Strategy to Overcome Vulnerability’, grant number PP00P1_179077/1.

INTRODUCTION

The End of Mobility as We Know It

For long we have taken physical mobility for granted.
Most of the research has been focusing on the hyper-
mobile society (Musselwhite et al., 2015;
Musselwhite & Haddad, 2010). There is an abundance
of scholarship looking at various types of physical
mobilities and how these are associated to higher
subjective well-being for younger and older persons
(De Vos et al., 2013; Nordbakke & Schwanen, 2014;
Schwanen & Ziegler, 2011; Ziegler & Schwanen,
2011). In relation to older persons in particular, the
independence and autonomy of exercising physical
mobility contributes to this population’s subjective
well-being (Schwanen & Ziegler, 2011). But what
happens if these taken-for-granted mobilities, from
the basic ones of going out for a walk or going grocery
shopping, taking public transport to visit friends, all

the way to taking a plane or a train for the holidays
are disrupted by a global pandemic?

The COVID-19 pandemic has made the daily news
and invaded our lives since early spring 2020. In
Switzerland, the decision was to have a partial
lockdown: shops and services that were not providing
or responding to basic needs were closed, social
gatherings were limited to a maximum of five
persons, and people were advised to leave the house
only if necessary. Persons aged 65 and over, and
those with an underlying health condition were
identified as especially vulnerable and were
particularly recommended to remain secluded and
avoid contact with others. Because of the absence of
a complete lockdown like, for instance, the ones in
Italy or France, we decided to use the terms partial

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confinement and semi-confinement throughout this
paper.

The literature acknowledges that there are various
forms of mobilities which are not limited to the
physical ones. In this paper we draw on the definition
of Ziegler and Schwanen (2011), who “conceptualize
mobilities as the overcoming of any type of distance
between a here and a there, which can be situated in
physical, electronic, social, psychological or other
kinds of space” (Ziegler & Schwanen, 2011, p. 758). In
this paper we look at the alternative forms of
mobilities in which older persons engaged during a
period of reduced physical mobility or even
immobility, and the extent to which these forms of
mobility are related to life satisfaction.

We rooted the conceptualization of our survey in
the new mobilities paradigm, which approaches
mobilities in a broad sense. It considers mobilities as
not being only limited to corporeal movement or
travel, but also as encompassing other forms of
mobility (Hannam et al., 2006; Sheller & Urry, 2006).
According to Urry (2007), mobilities comprise
imaginative travel through media, photos, books, and
television; virtual travel via the Internet;
communicative travel using various technologies,
such as text messages, Skype, e-mails, and so on, the
physical movement of objects, and corporeal travel.

Confronted with a unique situation, that of the
COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to restrictive
measures in most of the world – some marked by
recommended confinement, and others by a total
lockdown – people were compelled to adapt their
behaviors, often reducing physical mobility, and
engage in other forms of mobilities. Therefore, our
research question is: which forms of alternative
mobilities are associated with older persons’ life
satisfaction?

The new mobilities paradigm has already been
applied to older populations based on the assumption
that once they experience a decrease in physical
mobility due to old age, they can compensate by
engaging in other forms of alternative mobilities
(Ciobanu & Hunter, 2017; Ziegler & Schwanen, 2011).
Therefore, given that COVID-19 semi-confinement
was particularly focused on limiting older persons’
physical mobility to protect them from infection,

studying other forms of mobilities in this context and
in this population is particularly pertinent.

The paper is innovative in the following two ways:
1) Most of the literature on the link between
mobilities and different indicators of subjective well-
being has been focused on physical mobilities, and
there is a paucity of research exploring other forms of
mobilities – particularly virtual and imaginative – and
their relation to life satisfaction, which we aim to
contribute to; 2) We draw on an original survey
conducted during this unusual health crisis.

The article is structured into five parts: we start
with a theoretical anchoring of our paper in the
literature on communicative, imaginative, and virtual
mobilities and subjective well-being, then we present
our data and methods, followed by our empirical
findings, the discussion of our results, and finally the
conclusions of the paper.

CONCEPTUAL UNDERPINNING

On Mobilities and Subjective Well-Being: A
Theoretical Framework

In the following section we discuss the concept of
subjective well-being and how it has been linked to
different forms of mobilities stemming from the new
mobilities paradigm (Hannam et al., 2006; Sheller &
Urry, 2006; Urry, 2007).

Subjective well-being is defined as “a person’s
cognitive and affective evaluations of his or her life as
a whole” (Oishi et al., 2018, p. 1). This includes the
personal perceptions and experiences of positive and
negative emotions, as well as global and specific
cognitive evaluations of life satisfaction (Proctor,
2014). Although the literature on subjective well-
being and alternative mobilities types is scarce, the
research that does exist largely focuses on the
cognitive dimension (Chai & Kalyal, 2019; Heo et al.,
2015). Therefore, we opted to use the concept of life
satisfaction, a cognitive component of subjective
well-being. Throughout the text, we use the terms life
satisfaction and subjective well-being
interchangeably.

There are two approaches to subjective well-being:
the universalist and the contextualist. The former
holds that subjective well-being is stable and

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independent of time and place. The latter holds that
subjective well-being is rooted in people’s past
experiences, aspirations, culture, and more generally
context (Nordbakke & Schwanen, 2014). Given the
existing research on the relationship between
different factors – like health, social contact, physical
mobility, etc. – and subjective well-being (De Vos et
al., 2013; Deaton, 2008; Kööts-Ausmees & Realo,
2015; Nordbakke & Schwanen, 2014; Pinquart &
Sorensen, 2000; Revord et al., 2018; Schwanen &
Ziegler, 2011; Ziegler & Schwanen, 2011), we adhere
to the contextual approach.

Studies exploring particularly the impact of the
COVID-19 pandemic on subjective well-being have
also adopted this contextual approach. Pedraza and
colleagues (2020) for instance, found that state-
mandated measures aimed at restricting physical
mobilities were associated with increased life
dissatisfaction and anxiety. These state-mandated
measures were also perceived as a type of social
isolation, which had important negative
consequences for individuals’ subjective well-being
(Anastasiou & Duquenne, 2021; Brooks et al., 2020;
Clair et al., 2021). Some research has studied how,
despite the negative correlation between reduced
physical mobility and subjective well-being,
individuals – and older adults in particular – were able
to cope with this period. It was found that the most
common coping strategies among older adults
included outdoor activities, exercise, adhering to
COVID-19 precautions, hobbies like reading, cooking,
or listening to audiobooks, and social connection
through various forms of communication (Finlay et
al., 2021; Whitehead & Torossian, 2021).

Communicative Mobility

If physical mobility can be used to reach out and
meet others (Ziegler & Schwanen, 2011), similarly
communicative mobility is a means to establish and
maintain contact with friends and family. Both
telephones and internet-based communication
appear to be key in maintaining contact. Looking at
Internet use, Heo and colleagues (2015) observe that
this constitutes a tool for older persons to be in
contact with others and exchange emotional support,
which in its turn can lead to higher psychological well-
being and life satisfaction. It is particularly the social
component of Internet-mediated communication
that brings about well-being and happiness (Chai &

Kalyal, 2019), and this even among the oldest-old
(Sims et al., 2016). In this sense, the use of telephones
also increases social connectedness and subjective
well-being (Chai & Kalyal, 2019). The importance of
communicative mobility has been studied also for
older international migrants, for whom
communication at a distance, mediated using
technology, has been positively linked to quality of life
(Zhang, 2016).

When comparing active to passive Internet use and
their relation to life satisfaction, researchers found
that active use for communication purposes is
positively correlated to life satisfaction after the age
of 63, while passive use for non-communicative
activities like looking at content on a smartphone is
negatively correlated to life satisfaction, and these
relationships remain significant after controlling for
social network size and interactions (Stevic et al.,
2019). Stevic and colleagues (2019) explained the
positive effect of the use of smartphones for
communicative purposes among retirement-age
individuals through the social compensation
hypothesis and the social convoy model. With
retirement, individuals experience a reduction in their
social convoy, that is the various social relations
(partner and family relations, friends, and neighbors
and work colleagues) that accompany a person
throughout their life course (Antonucci et al., 2013).
The social compensation hypothesis holds that
“individuals compensate for the lack of face-to-face
friendships by extending their online social sphere”
(Stevic et al., 2019, p. 3), with positive implications for
their life satisfaction.

Moreover, a study particularly relevant for our
research shows that the use of information and
communications technology (ICT) for older persons
aged 75 and over can increase subjective well-being
through its facilitation of contact with family, which is
especially important for frail persons (Fang et al.,
2018). Specifically, during the first wave of the COVID-
19 pandemic, increased interaction with friends and
families through various forms of communication like
phone calls, text messages, and video calls, was
shown to be an important coping strategy for older
adults (Finlay et al., 2021; Whitehead & Torossian,
2021). In fact, a study on older persons in Germany
revealed that, during the first period of the pandemic,
individuals who used the internet less frequently to
stay in contact with friends and family reported lower

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life satisfaction, increased loneliness, and more
depressive symptoms than daily users (Hajek & König,
2021). Nonetheless, the relationship between
different forms of communication and life satisfaction
during the COVID-19 pandemic is still not widely
documented, and our research aims to fill this gap.

Following from this literature review, our first
hypothesis is that frequent engagement in
communicative mobility practices is associated with
higher life satisfaction because it allows persons to
stay in contact with others.

Imaginative Mobility

In the category of imaginative mobility, one can
include looking at photos, looking outside the
window, media consumption, reading literature, and
so on (Urry, 2007). Looking from the window appears
to be a very important activity, particularly for those
unable to leave their homes and for those whose
physical mobilities are very limited (Musselwhite,
2018; Rowles, 1981). Drawing on qualitative
interviews, Musselwhite (2018) shows that older
persons with physical mobility impairments engage
and indirectly participate in the outside community
through window watching. Musselwhite (2018)
investigates how this view from the inside to the
outside helps these individuals “stay somewhat
connected to the outside space that they cannot
physically inhabit” (p. 274). The view from the
window – whether rural or urban, whether marked by
the presence or absence of passers-by – “served as a
way of creating representations of life and help
[individuals] engage and reflect on changes in
lifestyles, it kept them part of society” (Musselwhite,
2018, p. 280). At the same time, looking from the
window can also allow for indirect contact with
nature, which enhances well-being (Kaplan Mintz et
al., 2021; Kaplan, 2001). In fact, a quantitative study
conducted during the first COVID-19 lockdown in
Israel on adults of all ages demonstrated that
individuals with high levels of nature views from
windows reported higher subjective well-being than
those with less nature views (Kaplan Mintz et al.,
2021).

In a similar way, as physical connections to the
outside world become more difficult with old age –
and were restricted during our study’s period of
partial confinement – they can be replaced by

memories and imaginative connections, which can
also be formed through looking at photographs
(Musselwhite, 2018). These feelings of inclusion in
society enable people to experience a sense of
belonging, even at a distance (Gehl, 2011), which in
turn contributes to their life satisfaction (Massey et
al., 2021). Despite this concept of belonging from a
distance, and the importance of window views for
individuals’ well-being (Kaplan Mintz et al., 2021;
Peters & Halleran, 2021), not many studies have
investigated the role of these imaginative mobilities
in older adults’ life satisfaction during the COVID-19
pandemic.

Our second hypothesis is therefore that frequent
engagement in imaginative mobility practices is
correlated to higher life satisfaction.

Virtual Mobility

To the best of our knowledge, there is no research
linking virtual mobility using virtual travel or virtual
museum visits to subjective well-being. While not
focused on measures of subjective well-being,
Winstead and colleagues (2013) looked at how social
and spatial barriers are affected by the use of ICTs in
assisted and independent living communities. They
observed that physically bound participants who
enjoyed visiting museums earlier in their lives
appreciated having the newly discovered ability to
look at art on the Internet. Moreover, older
individuals used Google Maps to travel back to their
hometowns and visit places they were attached to
and described these activities in a positive manner.
Because of these positive experiences among
research participants, we can infer that virtual
mobility may have a positive impact on life
satisfaction. This therefore leads us to our third
hypothesis: frequent engagement in virtual mobility
practices is associated with higher life satisfaction.

METHODS

The paper draws on an original survey on the impact
of the COVID-19 pandemic on the situation of persons
aged 65 and over in Switzerland. We developed a
survey in French and put it online through the
platform LimeSurvey. The questionnaire was
submitted and accepted by the Ethics Committee of
the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of
Geneva. To obtain informed consent, we inserted one

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question asking respondents if they accepted to have
their answers used for scientific publications and
presentations in conferences.

We applied a convenience sampling method and
distributed the link to the questionnaire through the
Platform of associations for older persons in Geneva,
the University of Geneva website, one of the local
newspapers in Geneva, and widely in our personal
and institutional networks. The reason for the
adoption of a convenience sampling method is the
coronavirus health crisis, which made it difficult, if not
impossible, to recruit and talk to participants in
person, as well as the time constraints to gather
information while the pandemic restrictions were still
in place.

Data were collected from April 18 to May 19, 2020,
which fell within the period of recommended limited
mobility in Switzerland, during which a semi-
confinement was in place. The resulting data were
cleaned and analyzed with the use of SPSS statistical
software.

In total, 787 individuals 65 and older participated
to the research, either by completing the
questionnaire themselves (n= 748) or with the help of
a friend or relative with internet access (n=39).
Among these, we excluded from the working sample
74 people who did not respond to all the Satisfaction
with Life Scale items, and an additional 70 who did not
respond to other interest variables included in our
analysis, leaving us with 643 participants. Out of them
67.3% are women and 32.7% men. The mean age in
our working sample is 73.3 years old, with a standard
deviation of 5.75.
Because of the convenience sampling method, our
sample of individuals 65 and older is composed of an
overrepresentation of individuals with a tertiary level
of education (65.6% had a tertiary level of education
and 29.9% a secondary level, in comparison to the
Swiss population of 65 and over, with 20.2% at a
tertiary education level and 49.1% at a secondary
level) (FSO, 2018). See Table 1 for more descriptive
statistics on the composition of our sample.

Measures

Our dependent variable is life satisfaction,
measured by the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener
et al., 1985), a 5-item scale assessing the cognitive

dimension of subjective well-being, and one of the
most frequently used scales in subjective well-being
research (Maddux, 2018). The scale is composed of
the following items:

1. In most ways my life is close to my ideal.
2. The conditions of my life are excellent.
3. I am satisfied with my life.
4. So far, I have gotten the important things I

want in life.
5. If I could live my life over, I would change

almost nothing.

Participants were instructed to indicate their level
of agreement with each item on a 7-point scale,
ranging from “1=strongly disagree” to “7=strongly
agree”. The answers for each item were then added
to create an individual score, ranging from 5 to 35.
Cronbach’s alpha was 0.87. Our sample had a mean
life satisfaction score of 28.8 and standard deviation
of 5.0. These results were not very different from the
Swiss population of 65 and older as another study on
a representative sample of the Swiss population of 65
and older showed a mean life satisfaction score of
26.8 and standard deviation of 5.4 (Baeriswyl & Oris,
2021). The slight difference between the mean life
satisfaction of our sample and that of the Swiss
population 65 and older can be attributed to the
composition of our sample: we had an
overrepresentation of healthy and highly educated
individuals, and these aspects tend to positively
influence life satisfaction (Diener et al., 1999).

Our key independent variables are indicators of
communicative mobility, imaginative mobility, and
virtual mobility during the partial confinement
period. We used two separate questions for each type
of mobility.

Because for the independent variables that we
study – alternative forms of mobilities – there are no
validated questions, to the best of our knowledge, we
therefore elaborated ourselves the questions, taking
inspiration in the existing literature (Ciobanu &
Hunter, 2017; Urry, 2007).

For communicative mobility we asked, “In the past
week, how often have you spoken on the phone?” as
well as, “Last week, how often did you use digital
means to communicate with friends or family?”. For
imaginative mobility we asked, “People sometimes

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spend time looking out the window. This may be
looking at passers-by, street life or nature. In the past
week, how often have you done this?” and, “In the
past week, how often have you looked at photos?”.
Possible answer categories for these questions were
“Never”, “Once during the week”, “Two to three
times during the week”, “Four to six times during the
week”, “Every day, less than three hours” and “Every
day, three hours or more”. We then recoded the first
two answer choices as “Once a week or less”, the next
two as “Several times a week” and the last two as
“Every day”. For virtual mobility we asked, “In the
past week, have you visited any museums and/or
exhibitions on the Internet?” as well as, “In the past
week, have you researched possible travel
destinations on the Internet?”. Answer choices were
“Yes” or “No”. See Table 2 for descriptive statistics of
these variables.

Basing ourselves on the life satisfaction and
mobilities literature, we controlled our analyses of
the links between life satisfaction and alternative
mobilities for the following sociodemographic
variables: sex, age, education level, relationship
status, whether the participant has children, and self-
rated health. We coded education level into three
categories: without post-compulsory training,
secondary, and tertiary. We coded relationship status
in two categories: single individuals, and individuals in
a partnership (whether married or in another form of
relationship). We measured self-rated health by
asking participants, “How do you rate your health in
general?”. Answer choices were “Very good”,
“Good”, “Fairly good”, “Bad”, and “Very bad”. We
then created a dichotomous variable with the first
two categories signifying good health status, and the
last three representing average/bad health status.

In addition, we controlled our analyses for the two
following personal resources variables: praying and
interaction with neighbors during the partial
confinement period. We included the act of praying
because religiosity has been found to positively
impact life satisfaction (Amit, 2010), and we
measured it as a dichotomous variable (has not
prayed the previous week, has prayed the previous
week). We also included interaction with neighbors as
a form of social contact during a time when contact
was limited due to partial confinement, as social
contact has been found to be positively correlated
with life satisfaction (Warr et al., 2004). We measured

this by asking participants which of the following
interactions they have had with their neighbors:
“None”, “Said hello”, “Courtesy visits”, “Helped each
other”. We then created a dichotomous variable by
grouping the first two categories in “Minimal to no
interaction” and the latter two in “Strong
interaction”. Moreover, we controlled our analyses
for self-related health and level of education.

We did not control for physical mobility because
most of our participants (92.7%) went out of the
house at least once during the semi-confinement,
whether it was to walk the dog, go to the garden, or
go grocery shopping. Despite this ability to go out, the
restrictions on physical mobility were undeniable, as
nonessential businesses were closed and face-to-face
meetings were strongly discouraged.

Data Analysis

We ran two linear regression models on the life
satisfaction score. In the first model, we tested the 6
mobility variables, and in the second we added the
sociodemographic and personal resources variables
as control variables. See Table 3 for the final models
of the regression results.

RESULTS

Most of our working sample engaged in forms of
communicative mobilities during partial confinement:
53.8% reported talking on the phone every day, 42.6%
did the activity several times a week, while only 3.6%
did this once a week or less. Moreover, 68.6% of our
sample used digital means to communicate every day,
26.0% did so several times a week, and 5.4% did so
once a week or less.

Engagement in imaginative mobilities during
partial confinement varied: 36.4% reported looking
out the window every day, 32.3% did this several
times a week, and 31.3% did this once a week or less.
The other measure of imaginative mobility – looking
at photos – was less prominent among our
participants: 8.1% did this every day, 28.9% did this
several times a week, while 63.0% did this once a
week or less.

Most of our working sample did not engage in
imaginative mobilities during this period: only 18.8%
reported having visited museums or expositions on

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the internet, and only 12.8% reported having
searched travel destinations on the internet.

Table 3 shows that the importance of
communicative mobility linked to life satisfaction is
confirmed, supporting our first hypothesis. The
analysis shows that individuals who talked on the
phone once a week or less reported lower life
satisfaction in comparison to those who talked on the
phone every day. Moreover, those who use digital
means to communicate with friends and family only
once a week or less report lower life satisfaction than
those who do so every day. These relationships
remain significant even after controlling for
sociodemographic and personal resources variables.

The results for the relationship between
imaginative mobility and life satisfaction vary.
Looking outside the window during this period is
significantly associated to life satisfaction. Those who
looked out the window every day reported higher life
satisfaction than those who did it several times a
week, but there is no significant difference between
those who only did the activity once a week or less
and those who did it every day. On the other hand,
looking at photos during the partial confinement
period is not significantly related to life satisfaction.
Our second hypothesis is thus only partially
confirmed.

In terms of virtual mobility, neither of the two
virtual mobility variables are significantly correlated
with life satisfaction. Our third hypothesis is therefore
rejected.

Other variables that are significantly and positively
linked to life satisfaction are being in a relationship
and being in good health. Having had strong
interactions with neighbors and having prayed during
the partial confinement are also positively correlated
with life satisfaction, but at a significance level
between 0.05 and 0.10.

DISCUSSION

The Importance of Communicative Mobilities

Whether directly or indirectly, all forms of mobilities
are seen as means of connecting to others and
connecting to our environment, but our study shows
that among individuals 65 and older, it is primarily

communicating with others that positively correlates
to life satisfaction during the public health crisis. As
Stevic and colleagues (2019) and Hajek and König
(2021) found, smartphone and internet use for
communicative purposes is positively associated with
life satisfaction. Our study confirms this relationship
between internet use and life satisfaction, if internet
use implies communicative purposes, for we also
found that internet use for visiting museums or
researching travel destinations has no correlation to
life satisfaction.

During a period in which physical socialization was
severely restricted and in which older individuals
were deemed a vulnerable population at risk of
severe consequences due to COVID-19, this study
highlights the importance of communicative
mobilities that promote social support and social
connectedness, whether through Internet-based
means or more classic telephone communication.
Social support, which can be conceptualized either as
“the actual transfer of advice, aid, and affect through
interpersonal networks during a specific period of
time” (Liang et al., 2001, p. 512) or as “a perception
of hypothetical resource availability” (Liang et al.,
2001, p. 512) has been shown to be a predictor of life
satisfaction in older adulthood and in general across
all ages (Aquino et al., 1996; Siedlecki et al., 2014).
This paper underlines that, during a pandemic that
physically drove individuals apart, social
connectedness is still possible using communicative
mobilities, and the more frequent use of these
mobilities is correlated to higher life satisfaction.

The importance of social interaction for life
satisfaction is further shown by two of our control
variables: being in a relationship and, to a lesser
extent, having had a strong interaction with
neighbors during the partial confinement period. This
confirms the existing literature stating that having
meaningful relationships is important to life
satisfaction (Baeriswyl & Oris, 2021; Revord et al.,
2018).

To the best of our knowledge, only one study
(Kaplan Mintz et al., 2021) has investigated the
relationship between window views and subjective
well-being during COVID-19, but it focuses primarily
on the presence of nature in the window views, rather
than on the activity of looking outside the window
itself. Moreover, the study does not specify the

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frequency of participants’ window watching, and it
includes adults of all ages instead of focusing on older
adults, for which the implications of window watching
on their subjective well-being may be different. Our
paper therefore adds an additional element to the
literature on the subject.

We therefore base ourselves on Musselwhite’s
(2018) study, which states that older persons
indirectly participate in the outside community
through window watching. Our results show that
those who looked out the window every day reported
a higher life satisfaction than those who did the
activity several times a week. We can presume that
looking out the window more often can be likened to
greater social participation, albeit indirect, and since
social participation is correlated with subjective well-
being measures (Baeriswyl & Oris, 2021), this can
explain these results. However, if looking out the
window is a proxy for indirect social participation, we
would expect that those who looked out the window
only once a week or less would also report lower life
satisfaction in comparison to those who did it every
day, but this was not the case. One way to explain this
is to presume that those who rarely or never look out
the window do not have a need for this indirect social
participation, and this activity is therefore not related
to their life satisfaction.

For older persons with reduced mobility, looking
outside the window is an important pass time activity.
In a period of reduced physical mobility, as was the
semi-confinement, it became even more important.
According to Musselwhite (2018), it is less important
what somebody sees, rather it is important to
broaden one’s horizon to the space and environment
outside one’s home, which can be experienced as a
limited space during this period. However, according
to Kaplan Mintz and colleagues’ study (2021), what
somebody sees is important indeed: windows with
greater views of nature are related to higher levels of
subjective well-being. Our study did not include
variables on the type of scenery viewed from
participants’ windows. Nonetheless, whether the
views are of nature or of urban settings, by looking
outside from the window, people can project
themselves in mobility, and when seeing others
outside, those who are immobile can experience a
form of mobility by proxy.

Once again, we have not found any research on the
relationship between looking at photos – our second
imaginative mobility variable – and life satisfaction. It
is therefore difficult to explain the absence of
relationship between these two variables. We can
however think that looking at photos can generate
two different reactions: one the one hand it can
trigger feelings of nostalgia, which have been found
to be positively correlated with life satisfaction (Rao
et al., 2018), as they “may render the present self
more positive and promote a brighter outlook on the
future” (Ye et al., 2018, p. 1749). On the other hand,
it can act as a reminder of the physical divisiveness
brought about by the pandemic. These opposing
reactions may thus cancel each other out and explain
the non-significance of this type of imaginative
mobility in relation to life satisfaction.

The lack of correlation between either virtual
mobility variable and life satisfaction can be explained
by the fact that neither of these mobility variables
concern any type of social participation or social
connectedness.

Moreover, we find good self-reported health to be
positively associated with life satisfaction, which
replicates existing research findings (Deaton, 2008;
Kööts-Ausmees & Realo, 2015; Pinquart & Sorensen,
2000). And lastly, having prayed during partial
confinement is positively associated with life
satisfaction, which is congruent to the found
relationship between religiosity and our dependent
variable (Amit, 2010).

The general hypothesis that we started with, that
mobilities as conceived by the New Mobilities
Paradigm (Urry, 2007) can constitute important
resources, notably in the context of reduced physical
mobility imposed by the semi-confinement and that
it would have an impact on well-being, is not globally
confirmed. Yet, when looking at virtual,
communicative, and imaginative mobilities, we
conclude that what is of importance to life
satisfaction in this pandemic context is social
interaction, whether direct or indirect.

LIMITATIONS AND CONCLUSION

The COVID-19 pandemic and the partial confinement
that was linked with it provided us with a unique
situation. Researchers in social sciences quickly

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mobilized to study the impact of the public health
crisis at the micro, meso, and macro levels (Gamba et
al., 2020). The same variables that have shaped
individuals’ lives have also had an impact on the
conditions under which we conducted research. The
main limitation of this study is the fact that the
sample on which it is based is not representative, as
we were not able to capture the entire diversity of
Switzerland’s socio-economic levels. To accurately
analyze both subjective evaluations and objective
behaviors, it was essential to collect our data during
the semi-confinement. Because of this, we had to rely
on a convenience sampling method, which involved
an internet-based survey. Consequently, our
respondents were persons with internet connection,
or who were interviewed by friends or family. Despite
our awareness of this sample limitation, this was the
only way we could reach individuals aged 65 and over
given the time and contextual restraints.

Another limitation is that our study does not
investigate whether communicative, imaginative, and
virtual mobilities compensate for physical ones, as we
do not analyze the change in mobilities before partial
confinement and during it, but rather our research
analyzed whether they constitute potential resources
in a context that limits physical mobilities.

Given the importance of communicative mobilities
for life satisfaction among older persons, it would be
beneficial for future policies to invest in literacy and
access to information and communication
technologies. These would equip older individuals
with the necessary reserves (Cullati et al., 2018) to
activate communication channels when confronted
with physical immobility brought about by old age.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Authors would like to thank Cornelia Hummel, Michel
Oris, Franz Schultheis and Philippe Wanner for their
assistance in the elaboration of the present study and
questionnaire.

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Table 1. Sociodemographic Variables and Distribution Among Working Sample

Sociodemographic variable n Distribution (%)

Age Min: 65

Max: 99

Mean: 73.3

Std. Deviation: 5.75

Gender

Female 433 67.3

Male 210 32.7

Education

Without post-compulsory training 29 4.5

Secondary 192 29.9

Tertiary 422 65.6

Relationship status

Single 230 35.8

In a relationship 413 64.2

Children

No children 113 17.6

Has at least 1 child 530 82.4

Region / Canton of Residence*

Geneva 296 46.0

Vaud 165 25.7

Other 182 28.3

* In Switzerland, canton does not only have a geographical meaning, but also has a political significance.

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Table 2. Mobility Variables and Distribution Among Working Sample

Mobility variable n Distribution (%)

Frequency of talking on the phone during
partial confinement

Every day 346 53.8

Several times a week 274 42.6

Once a week or less 23 3.6

Freq. of digital means use for communication
during partial confinement

Every day 441 68.6

Several times a week 167 26.0

Once a week or less 35 5.4

Freq. of looking out the window during partial
confinement

Every day 234 36.4

Several times a week 208 32.3

Once a week or less 201 31.3

Freq. of looking at photos
during partial confinement

Every day 52 8.1

Several times a week 186 28.9

Once a week or less 405 63.0

Visited museums or expositions on the internet
during partial confinement

Yes 121 18.8

No 522 81.2

Searched travel destination on the internet
during partial confinement

Yes 82 12.8

No 561 87.2

NOTE: Looking at the variable distribution at first glance (Table 2), one may hypothesize that the non-significance
of the relationship may be due to the small number of individuals who looked at photos every day (n=52) and the
fact that “Every day” is the reference category in the regression. However, we also tried changing the reference
category to “Once a week or less” but the relationship between frequency of looking at photos and life satisfaction
did not change. We thus kept the reference category as “Every day” to be consistent with the other variables in the
regression.

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Table 3. Linear Regression Analyses: The Relationship Between Communicative, Virtual, and Imaginative
Mobilities, and Life Satisfaction (n=643)

Dependent variable: Life Satisfaction Scale

Model 1: Mobility variables Model 2: + Sociodemographic
and personal resources

Coef. Std.
Error

Sig. Coef. Std.
Error

Sig.

Freq. of talking on phone during
partial confinement

Every day Ref. Ref.

Several times a week -0.416 0.414 0.315 -2.75 0.405 0.498

Once a week or less -2.972** 1.081 0.006 -2.232* 1.051 0.034

Freq. of digital means use for comm.
During partial confinement

Every day Ref. Ref.

Several times a week -0.033 0.463 0.943 -0.163 0.446 0.715

Once a week or less -2.407** 0.880 0.006 -2.069* 0.867 0.017

Freq. of looking out the window
during partial confinement

Every day Ref. Ref.

Several times a week -0.942* 0.477 0.049 -0.974* 0.461 0.035

Once a week or less -0.033 0.481 0.946 0.038 0.471 0.937

Freq. of looking at photos during
partial confinement

Every day Ref. Ref.

Several times a week 0.341 0.780 0.662 0.374 0.748 0.617

Once a week or less -0.026 0.738 0.972 0.134 0.712 0.851

Visited museums or expositions on
internet during partial confinement
(Ref: Did not do so)

-0.614 0.505 0.225 -0.588 0.490 0.231

Searched travel destination on the
internet partial confinement (Ref:
Did not do so)

0.279 0.589 0.635 0.350 0.572 0.541

Male (Ref: Female) -0.730 0.438 0.096

Age 0.052 0.035 0.140

Education level

Tertiary Ref.

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Secondary -0.552 0.423 0.193

Without post-compulsory training 1.271 0.955 0.184

In a relationship (Ref: Not in a
relationship)

1.423** 0.428 0.001

No children (Ref: Has children) 0.638 0.511 0.213

Strong interaction w/ neighbors (Ref:
Minimal to no interaction)

0.739 0.392 0.060

Health: Average to bad (Ref: Good
health)

-2.869*** 0.449 <0.001

Prayed during partial confinement

No Ref.

Yes 0.789 0.418 0.059

Missing 0.729 0.652 0.265